The invention relates generally to the field of telecommunications, and more particularly to announcements for incoming messages on telecommunications devices.
People today make widespread use of telecommunications equipment. Nearly every family in this country has at least conventional wired telephone service, and very many also have wireless telecommunications service. Telephone calls are made so frequently that it is a routine part of many people's day.
New calling features are constantly evolving to enhance the users' call experience. One such feature is caller-specific ring tones. With this feature, a call that arrives at an enabled telecommunications device may include caller identification information that identifies the call originator. If so, the device resolves the caller identification information to locally-stored contact information if present. If the locally-stored contact information identifies a particular call announcement, the device announces the incoming call with that announcement. Examples of call announcements include media files or ring tones that are played to announce the call.
Many people like this feature, however its usefulness depends on the user (i.e., the call recipient) making each assignment of inbound message announcements to locally-stored contact information, which in turn depends on the user storing contact information on the device for many call originators.
An alternative method and mechanism for incoming message announcement has eluded those skilled in the art, until now.